REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Pokemon(R) games have always been best-sellers. But the huge popularity of the portable Nintendo DS(TM) and the Wii(TM) home video game system has put the Pokemon craze into a whole new category. Just check out these statistics:
-- According to the independent NPD Group, through July Pokemon Diamond is
the best-selling video game of the year on any system, while Pokemon
Pearl ranks No. 3.
-- The newly released Pokemon Battle Revolution already ranks at No. 5 on
the list of best-selling Wii games for the year.
-- Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl for Nintendo DS have sold more than 3
million copies in the United States alone.
-- Pokemon games have helped boost sales of Nintendo hardware. According
to the NPD Group, Wii and Nintendo DS were again the two best-selling
video game systems in the United States in July.
"These hard numbers show that the Pokemon franchise and Nintendo's systems are striking a chord with players of all ages and drawing in huge numbers of new players year after year," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "But anecdotally we are also seeing that these new Pokemon games are appealing to older players, the same ones who played the original Pokemon games when they debuted in the United States almost 10 years ago."
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Grown men and women with kids of their own proudly announce they are training Pokemon and having a blast doing it. Gamer site http://www.penny-arcade.com/ ran a four-part comic about the artist's Pokemania, while Kristin Brandt of ManicMommies.com posted: "I have become obsessed. I have played for many, many hours (I can't even admit to how many -- it's embarrassing) ... And I can't seem to stop! There are more Pokemon to capture, more levels to conquer and more badges to earn!"
The Pokemon franchise has sold more than 164 million games worldwide. For more information about Pokemon Battle Revolution, Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl, visit http://www.pokemon-games.com/. Remember that Wii features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other Wii features, visit Wii.com.
Pokemon USA, Inc., a subsidiary of The Pokemon Company in Japan, manages the property outside of Asia which includes licensing, marketing, the Pokemon Trading Card Game, an animated TV series, home entertainment, the official Pokemon Web site and an online retail center http://www.pokemoncenter.com/. Pokemon was launched in Japan in 1996 for play on Nintendo's Game Boy(R) and has since evolved into a global cultural phenomenon. Pokemon was introduced in North America in September 1998 and today is one of the most popular toy and entertainment properties in the world. For more information, visit http://www.pokemon.com/.
The worldwide innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Wii(TM), Nintendo DS(TM), Game Boy(R) Advance and Nintendo GameCube(TM) systems. Since 1983, Nintendo has sold nearly 2.4 billion video games and more than 420 million hardware units globally, and has created industry icons like Mario(TM), Donkey Kong(R), Metroid(R), Zelda(TM) and Pokemon(R). A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo's operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, visit the company's Web site at http://www.nintendo.com/.
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